Kolkata’s health department has expanded a system that will move critical patients from overcrowded government hospitals to mapped private facilities, with the state promising free treatment, ambulance transport and coordination through a central control room.
The initiative links six state-run medical colleges in Kolkata and its suburbs with neighbouring private hospitals. It was first piloted between SSKM Hospital and KPC Medical College in Jadavpur before being expanded after a meeting at Swasthya Bhawan, the state health department headquarters, with medical superintendent-cum-vice-principals from key institutions.
Under the protocol, doctors at a government hospital’s emergency department will first provide treatment to stabilise a critical patient. If the hospital faces an acute shortage of beds, its authorities will contact the Integrated Control Room at Swasthya Bhawan. The control room receives live bed-availability feeds from government hospitals and is expected to integrate feeds from private hospitals as well.
The referring hospital will send the control room a case summary covering the patient’s illness, symptoms and emergency treatment requirements. Swasthya Bhawan will then forward the details to the nodal officer at the designated private hospital to secure a bed. Once availability is confirmed, the control room will notify the government hospital and arrange transfer through a government ambulance.
The health department said the transfer and treatment would be provided without cost to the patient’s family. Officials said existing schemes, including Swasthya Sathi, Ayushman Bharat and the Chief Minister’s Health Scheme, would be used to settle claims wherever applicable, ensuring that families do not face out-of-pocket expenses under the arrangement.
The mapped pairings include SSKM Hospital with KPC Medical College in Jadavpur; Calcutta National Medical College with Manipal Hospital in Dhakuria; Kolkata Medical College and Hospital with Manipal Hospital in Salt Lake; RG Kar Medical College and Hospital with ILS Hospital in Salt Lake; and Sagore Dutta Medical College with Zenith Hospital in Belgharia. The pairing between NRS Medical College and Hospital and Apollo Multispecialty Hospital is still being processed.
Health Minister Sharadwat Mukherjee told The Indian Express that private hospitals should contribute beds because several facilities had received land from the government at highly subsidised rates. He said the control room would confirm availability before a stabilised patient was shifted to a nearby private hospital using state transport.
The state has described the arrangement as an immediate response to bed shortages while it works to expand public capacity. Mukherjee said SSKM Hospital would receive 100 additional beds and that the department was working to reduce referrals by improving infrastructure and preparing doctors to handle critical cases, including drowning incidents and maternal and child emergencies.
The system’s operation during peak emergency periods remains a concern for some doctors. A senior private-hospital doctor questioned how patients would be treated while a private bed was being confirmed, whether the service would operate at night and what would happen if the designated private hospital also had no available bed.
Rajiv Pandey, secretary of the Association of Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes, said smoother referrals could help patients from districts reach facilities with specialised departments. The health department’s next steps are to operationalise the remaining hospital pairing, integrate private-hospital bed feeds into the control room and continue expanding beds in and around Kolkata.
